ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Great Zimbabwe

Great Zimbabwe

Great Zimbabwe was a medieval African city known for its large circular wall and tower. It was part of a wealthy African trading empire that controlled much of the East African coast from the 11th to the 15th centuries C.E.

Grades

5 - 8

Subjects

Geography, Human Geography, Social Studies, Ancient Civilizations, World History

Image

Great Zimbabwe's Great Enclosure

Great Zimbabwe is the name for the stone remains of a medieval city in southeastern Africa. It is composed of three parts, including the Great Enclosure (shown here). It is believed to have been a royal residence or a symbolic grain storage facility.

Photograph by Christopher Scott
Great Zimbabwe is the name for the stone remains of a medieval city in southeastern Africa. It is composed of three parts, including the Great Enclosure (shown here). It is believed to have been a royal residence or a symbolic grain storage facility.

Great Zimbabwe is the name of the stone ruins of an ancient city near modern day Masvingo, Zimbabwe. People lived in Great Zimbabwe beginning around 1100 C.E. but abandoned it in the 15th century. The city was the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe, which was a Shona (Bantu) trading empire. Zimbabwe means “stone houses” in Shona.

Great Zimbabwe was part of a large and wealthy global trading network. Archaeologists have found pottery from China and Persia, as well as Arab coins in the ruins there. The elite of the Zimbabwe Empire controlled trade up and down the east African coast. However, the city was largely abandoned by the 15th century as the Shona people migrated elsewhere. The exact reasons for the abandonment are unknown, but it is likely that exhaustion of resources and overpopulation were contributing factors.

The archaeological site at Great Zimbabwe consists of several sections. The first section is the Hill Complex, a series of structural ruins that sit atop the steepest hill of the site. This is generally believed to have been the religious center of the site. The Hill Complex is the oldest part of Great Zimbabwe, and shows signs of construction that date to around 900 C.E.

The ruins of the second section, the Great Enclosure, are perhaps the most exciting. The Great Enclosure is a walled, circular area below the Hill Complex dating to the 14th century. The walls are over 9.7 meters (32 feet) high in places, and the enclosure’s circumference is 250 meters (820 feet). The walls were built without mortar, relying on carefully shaped rocks to hold the wall’s shape on their own. Inside the enclosure is a second set of walls, following the same curve as the outside walls, which end in a stone tower 10 meters (33 feet) high. While the function of this enclosure is unknown, archeologists suggest it could have been a royal residence or a symbolic grain storage facility. It is one of the largest existing structures from ancient sub-Saharan Africa.

The third section is the Valley Ruins. The Valley Ruins consist of a significant number of houses made mostly of mud-brick (daga) near the Great Enclosure. The distribution and number of houses suggests that Great Zimbabwe boasted a large population, between 10,000–20,000 people.

Archaeological research has unearthed several soapstone bird sculptures in the ruins. These birds are thought to have served a religious function, and may have been displayed on pedestals. These birds appear on the modern Zimbabwean flag and are national symbols of Zimbabwe.

The ruins of Great Zimbabwe were designated a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site in 1986. There have only been a limited number of archaeological excavations of the site. Unfortunately, significant looting and destruction occurred in the 20th century at the hands of European visitors. Although they were all too happy to explore and loot the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, in their racism, European colonists thought the city was too sophisticated to have been built by Africans, and instead thought it had been built by Phoenicians or other non-African people. However, despite the damage done by these colonial looters, today, the legacy of Great Zimbabwe lives on as one of the largest and most culturally important archaeological sites of its kind in Africa.

Media Credits

The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.

Director
Tyson Brown, National Geographic Society
Author
National Geographic Society
Production Managers
Gina Borgia, National Geographic Society
Jeanna Sullivan, National Geographic Society
Program Specialists
Sarah Appleton, National Geographic Society, National Geographic Society
Margot Willis, National Geographic Society
Producer
Clint Parks
Intern
Roza Kavak
other
Last Updated

October 19, 2023

For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.

Media

If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media.

Text

Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service.

Interactives

Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives.

Related Resources